Started: 7/29/18

Finished: 8/15/18

Platinum: No

DLC: Included

So thankfully the wife didn’t kill me for playing and beating this before she could even start it. Then again having a 2 year old kind of takes up a good chunk of time so at least someone played it right?

Let me start off by saying I was never really a Tomb Raider fan. I often played the demo levels that came with various Playstation demo disc back in the day and really they never grabbed me. Yes I grew up during the major hay day of Laura mania and there was always those kids in school who would swear there was nude codes and secret sex scenes in the game. I never really cared about that because this was late 90’s graphics, nothing very sexy in seeing some naked woman who was made from very sharp looking triangles. (Not to say I never looked up good fan art…)

The tomb raider reboot that came out a couple years ago on the PS3 was really the first Tomb Raider game that I played and I really enjoyed it. Of course I had to compare it to Uncharted and of course my wife being the Tomb Raider super fan had to remind me repeatedly that the original Tomb Raider games inspired Uncharted (and of course I threw back in her face that if it wasn’t for Indiana Jones neither game would exist).

So I did enjoy this sequel. The graphics were fantastic and many of the areas were fun. But I do have my complaints about it.

First off the story. Maybe because I played almost all of the Uncharted games and seen my share of action/adventure games but I was able to guess a good amount of the twist that came up: The older woman who was Laura’s friend was evil, the leader of the tribe of people being the Jesus figure all the documents talked about, ancient device makes inhuman monsters, evil secret cabal going after the object to rule the world being the ones who killed Laura’s father…

I hate to say it but all of those seem to be check marks on the adventure plot check list. Maybe it’s more me than anything thing else since I played and watched so many action adventure things. It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the game at all but I do wish maybe there was some kind of twist show up. I did like playing the Baba Yaga DLC mission though.

My other complaint is something that happens in games like this: The surroundings often confuses me on where I can and cant go. The Uncharted series had this and the reboot did the same thing. There were many times where I would be climbing on a section and would get to a point where I have no idea where to go. I could use the Tomb Raider vision to see if there was any kind of special wall I need to hook onto but there were times where either the game may have glitched and showed nothing or I would be near nothing to jump on. The camera would sometimes seem to get hung up on something so I couldn’t really see around the area.

The other issue that would happen at this moment would be Laura deciding to go in the completely different direction I wanted her to go. There were many times where I pointed her to jump towards a platform or something but out of no where Laura decided to launch herself off the wall and towards her death. At first I thought maybe it was me not hitting a button right or something but when my wife started to play she said she had the same thing hit her a couple times. This is something that happens once in a great while in the Uncharted games so I will chalk it up to it being 3D world jank.

The only other problem I had was the upgrade/store section. You unlock a little supply shack where a guy offers some weapons and upgrade items for the special coins you find in the world. This would be good but you find so little of the coins unless you find the special maps, and the upgrade stuff is in the triple digits. After awhile I just saved up for the two items needed for some upgrades and left the others behind. Upgrading the tools and weapons is a bit annoying but then again when you find the weapons you will use all the time you don’t really feel like you have to try to upgrade them all. And since this is like the special “game of the year” edition this has all the DLC weapons unlocked almost from the start so really if you just want a powerful rifle, pistol and shotgun you might end up using the DLC stuff.

Since this version was the special PS4 edition it has all the DLC missions with it. I enjoyed the baba yaga mission and haven’t touched the mansion stuff but there was a special Survival mode that was fun. It drops Laura off in the middle of the Siberian woods and your whole mission is to find treasures in a randomly generated map. You have to watch your hunger and heat levels while fighting enemies and random animals. The map is very random because there were times I started out with several tomb/treasure area like right next to me while other times I was truly in the middle of nowhere, winding up starving/freezing to death or getting killed by animals. There are special cards you can earn/buy that can help or hurt your game. You can use credits you earn in game or spend real money. They are okay but really not needed.

I totally recommend playing this if you like the Uncharted series. The next game is coming out soon and I may pick it up for the wife!

NEXT GAME: Dead Rising (PS4)